


Good to Be A Ghost

by Daiako (Achrya)



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: (more rivals really but...), Alternate Universe - The Witcher Fusion, Anakin has a crush on everyone he meets, Blood and Violence, Death, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gore, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Jealousy, M/M, Magic, Major Character Injury, Minor Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mystery, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Politics, Slow Burn, Swordfighting, Training
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24083812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Daiako
Summary: Eleven years ago Anakin Skywalker was saved from monsters by a nameless Witcher, wielding a green sword. This set him on the path to training to become a Witcher himself, determined to rid the world of the Dark and monsters that plague it. But the Witchers aren't what he expected: a near defunct group, wary of taking in recruits, beholden to the whims of the continents' monarchs and ruling powers.With only one last trial before his training is complete Anakin decides to answer a call for aid from Naboo, even after being told not to go, thinking he knows exactly what awaits him. What is meant to be the simple clearing out of a harpy next changes his life, setting him on a new, murkier, path and blurring the lines between man and monster, hero and hunted, Light and Dark, than he knew was possible.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	Good to Be A Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Just smashing Jedi and Witcher Lore together as I see fit. No rhyme or reason to it, except what works in the moment. 
> 
> Things get a little gory here, so beware.

“Ghouls.” Anakin muttered as he let himself lean against the wall of the house they’d ducked behind. Their pursuers were closing the gap, the shuffle and drag of their steady steps echoing around the stone maze the heart of the village had become. They had, at best, a handful of minutes to catch their breath. “I hate ghouls.” 

Rex huffed out a breathy laugh. “Most do.” 

And with good reason. Ghouls were mindless, shambling corpses reanimated by the Dark, putrid flesh eaters, scavengers prone to tearing through graveyards and plague sick towns at best, and attacking with the vicious mindlessness of starving animals at worst. They were hard to kill, not feeling pain or having the brain power to stop over something as little as a lost limb or two. No amount of stabbing, battering, and injury could stop them. Only a total crush of the skull and brain or a beheading could get it done and with the numbers they traveled in getting that finishing blow could be near impossible.

No Witcher worth their swords would take on a pack alone let alone what looked to him to be more like two or three merged groups. A superpack like that could easily wipe out and pick clean even the largest of cities in a matter of days, and it would take a team to destroy them. 

A single witcher and a team of homunculi could, maybe, thin numbers and delay a while. 

A single not-quite witcher and the last of a decimated homunculi squad...well. 

He lifted his hand, the one that wasn’t clutching his sword with blood slick and numb fingers, from the wound on his side. It didn’t hurt much, just a dull throb from around what he assumed were the edge of the wound but he didn’t dare look more than briefly at it. Feeling the strange bulging trying to escape past his hand, the slipperiness under his fingertips that didn’t feel like skin, and seeing the stricken look on Rex’s face told him everything he needed to know. It was bad, really bad. That last ghoul had gotten its claws into him deep and literally torn a chunk out of him. 

Hacking off it’s head while it was distracted swallowing down a fist sized chunk of his torso and insides was not as satisfying as it would have been. Even the consultation of at least not having been gnawed on directly was dimmed by the many bloody bite marks that littered the rest of his body, each radiating a blistering heat. If he turned his sword arm a little he could see a bad one just above his wrist; the ragged edges were already starting to shrivel, black was creeping up his blood vessels, and a foaming yellow pus was rising up to slide out sluggishly with his blood. 

Ghoul infection was swift, painful, and incurable outside of ghoul anti-venom and even that was fifty-fifty odds if administered immediately. They were well past that point. The black lines, he remembered, showed the rotted and infected blood as it spread to his heart. Once it got there it was a short trip to his brain and then it was over. Death would come, his brain wouldn’t be able to hold thoughts beyond consuming human flesh, and there’d be nothing left but existing until someone took his head. 

In theory at least. Rex wouldn’t let that happen to him, he would put Anakin to rest the minute it became clear he could do no more good in this world, and Anakin was grateful for it. And sorry it would come to that; Rex deserved more than to be the last man standing. If there had been any point in sending him away Anakin might have done it, and just hoped the ghouls tore him apart so there was nothing left to rise up, but Rex wouldn’t have gone. 

Homunculus' loyalty was literally spun in the creation magic that animated them but, more than that, Rex was Rex. 

Still, Master Windu would have been impressed that he remembered his ‘undead creatures’ lessons so well, maybe. If not for the circumstances, and how Anakin had snuck out of the Temple against orders along with his squad, so confident in the reports of harpies outside Naboo that he hadn’t bothered to think beyond wanting to help Padme and her people and being furious that he’d been denied the chance.

When one of Padme’s handmaidens had petitioned the temple directly for aid, rare since all petitions went through the United Kingdom Alliance these days, Anakin hadn’t thought twice about volunteering. Master Windu had, likewise, not thought twice in turning him down. He wasn’t a full Witcher yet, the Bear Temple didn’t have anyone to spare to go with him, the request hadn’t come through the right channels, and a bunch of other things Anakin hadn’t cared about. There were always a dozen reasons why he couldn’t do something and they were always bullshit. 

“Can you get a count?” He asked, turning his attention skyward. The moon was high and full, stars twinkling merrily over the inky purple of the sky. He’d never gotten to see the sky like this when he was young because of the thick layer of smoke and ash that always seemed to hover in the air, Tatooine City was highly industrialized and the dwarf hold nearby was active all year round, and because the nights were so short that far south. It was nice. Peaceful, even, if he ignored that cloying stench of death and spilled intestine permeating every inch of this cursed village. 

Rex hummed, blue eyes flickering into glowing orange as he leaned out of their alley to peer around the corner. He slid back, lips curved down into a thoughtful frown, and met Anakin’s eyes. “A few more.” 

It hurt to laugh. Anakin tasted blood and bile on his tongue but he laughed anyway; his vision swam gray and cloudy. “Alright. I think we can take a few.” 

A low snort was the only verbal response he got but from the corner of his eyes he saw Rex reaching down to pull a bolt from his quiver to notch his crossbow. Anakin breathed in, willing the haze over his vision to clean, breathed out, then nodded to himself. 

They would take out more of the pack, thin the ranks further, buy the fleeing villagers more time to get to the gates of Naboo proper and find safety inside. Those people would warn Padme and emergency aid could be sought. No one else had to die. 

Even with how things were going he knew he’d made the right choice. If he hadn’t come and seen the signs of ghouls then cleared out the village hundreds of people would have died. Protecting people, saving them, could never be the wrong choice, and the idea of having to wait for politicians and monarchs to vote and give them the go ahead to do their job would never sit right with him.

The only thing he regretted was that his homunculi had been dragged into it, had died on his watch, and that the ones left behind would be assigned to someone who wouldn’t do right by them. Or worse, decommissioned because none of the other’s wanted to take on members of a unit who let their commander die. Also bullshit but he’d be dead soon, barring some luck that would be incredible even by his standards, so it didn’t matter how he felt, did it? 

Hopefully Master Windu would be nice enough to not say ‘I told you so’ until after Anakin was on the pyre. 

In his defense, who would have expected a small army of ghouls when they’d been contacted for culling a rampaging harpy nest? He didn’t know if Padme’s handmaiden had somehow been mistaken about what was terrorizing the outskirts of Naboo (mistaking harpys for ghouls was not exactly a common mistake) or if the deaths caused by the harpies had just caused ghouls to follow at their heels. 

He didn’t know that it mattered much, in the long run. 

He pushed himself off the wall, placing his bloodied hand on the blade of his sword and calling up what little magic he felt left in him. His head felt heavy and the world tilted wildly but, swallowing down a rush of nausea, me managed to stay on his feet. A slide of his finger left a sticky trail of dark blood as he made the signs for Viri and Coris. The blade flared a faint blue, not close to the usual vibrant deep blue he could call forth but it would have to do. 

The sounds of the superpack were coming closer, not just the heavy sounds of a large group moving together but the wet rasps, drooning calls, and clicks that came with a ghoul’s presence. There was no doubt in his mind they were coming straight for them, drawn by the scent of blood and, in spite of the open sky and all the space around him, he felt, suddenly, closed in. Pinned down with no way out, like a bug beneath glass who could only wait to smother (or, in his case, bleed out) or eventually be squashed beneath his captor’s palm. 

He stepped out of cover, absolutely nothing at the sight of at least 3 dozen ghouls, gray skinned faces hanging slack, filmy black eyes vacant, wounds seeping black, the scent of death so thick it had a near physical presence able to choke Anakin, lumbering down the lane towards them. They were separated by yards and as soon as Anakin was before their sight (though he wondered if they could actually see, with eyes like those) they sped up as one, a wave of bloated corpses with the same thought in their ruined brains. 

He hadn’t ever imagined it ending like this. 

Anakin knew that death was inevitable, contrary to what his instructors seemed to think of him. Some beings lived longer than others, yes, so long that they seemed immortal even (Elves, he’d heard, were very long lived and certainly Witchers could be.) but they weren’t Deathless by any means. It came to everything that lived in time: Humans and Non-Humans, beasts, plants. Slave women who gave up everything for their children. Witchers, and soon to be but would likely never be Witchers. 

But he’d never thought that would happen so soon. He was only just entering his twentieth year, he hadn’t finished his last Trial yet, hadn’t been around the country and done all the things he imagined a Witcher doing. Helping people, saving them like he’d been saved, stomping out the Dark and the unnatural hellbeasts who threatened humanity; he’d dreamed of himself doing those things since he’d been brought to the Bear Temple. Since that Witcher, a man in earth toned robes whose sword glowed green, had freed him eleven years ago and set him on the path north he’d thought of little else.

Rex fired, fiery bolt slicing through the air with a familiar ‘thwip’, and was reloaded before a ghoul fell with a bolt lodged deep into its eye. The gap left in the hoard was filled quickly, the rest of the mindless mass crawling over their fellow without so much as a hint that they’d noticed. Another bolt, another body, and finally Anakin moved. 

He leapt, an Aard sigil boosting him, and came down with a sweep of his sword that smoothly removed the top half of a ghoul’s skull. Pivot, avoiding grasping hands, thrust into another’s neck then dragging to come out the side; it fell but it’s spine was still partially intact. He thrust down, wanted to shove the blade through the things skull but clammy hand latching onto his shoulder stopped him. He moved, dancing away from the ghouls starting to close in a circle around him, breathed, and started again. Upward swing, a hand taken at the wrist before it could grasp his sleeve, duck, slam his sword down, shattering bone and jarring his shoulders, jump back and to the side as another bolt slammed into a ghoul’s forehead and exploded in a shower of bone and sludgy brain matter across Anakin’s face.

He switched his grip, one hand sliding higher on the hilt, rocked back to adjust and thrust out a hand. The Arad sigil on his palm was cold when it came to life, drug the warmth from his fingertips and spilled it out as a wave of force, clearing a few feet of space for himself. He almost bent over double as the magic twisted free from his body, the wound on his side no longer numb but on fire. He wavered, swayed (a mistake, that had been a mistake) he was falling and 

An arc of green at his side and two ghouls heads rolled along the ground in front of him.

A tight spiral of blue and the crackled of magic in the air and ghouls were flying back, many of them minus hands or arms. 

Anakin’s knee hit the ground. 

Other witchers? Here? Had Master Windu sent people after him, even though they were stretched to their limits, nearly everyone out on missions constantly? It was hard to focus, his thoughts sluggish and scattered, but he knew that didn’t sound right to him. Master Windu...Master Windu would be grateful to be rid of him, had never wanted him at the Bear Temple (or any Temple) to begin with and never made any secret of it. He’d questioned Anakin’s every move, especially since he’d started the Trials. 

Failing right at the finish line would prove he’d been right to doubt Anakin all along. 

He swallowed, blood thick on his tongue, and forced stiff, unsteady legs to bring him back to his feet. He was going to be sick, felt it rising up his throat, but it would have to wait. 

Not yet. 

His head was pounding badly. His vision jumped and flickered, grayed, doubled before finally solidifying into something he could work with. He saw ghouls moving, some coming back for him and other’s splintering off to new prey, but heard nothing. The world was eerily silent, scentless, tilting wildly, and it was impossible to think beyond the red edged pounding in his skull. He spit, blood and saliva a hard ball in the back of his throat, and surged back into the fight.

Or would have, if a wall of flame hadn’t sprung to life between him and the closest ghouls. He jerked back in surprise, just missing plowing through it. The Ghoul’s weren’t so inclined and all too soon the smell of cooking flesh filled his nose. Normally Fire wouldn’t stop a ghoul but this fire...consumed them, caught oily clumps of hair and scraps of cloth hanging from their emaciated forms, blackened skin, licked blue and white as it filled mouths, noses, burst eyes from their sockets. 

The ghouls screamed as they collapsed in on themselves, arms still reaching pitifully for him. The noise, mindless animal howls of pain (pain ghouls weren’t supposed to feel), pierced straight through Anakin’s brain, resonated in his skull; he felt it in his teeth, he 

_-cut through the settlement, blood dripping from his face and fingertips, the screams of the monsters who had taken Her from him spurring him to move faster, to let no one escape. They fell before him, begging, clinging to each other, and he cut each one down without hesitation._

_The blue glow of his sword had faded to nothing beneath the blood coating it._

_For the first time in his life his mind was blessedly, perfectly, quiet._

“What are you doing?” Someone demanded from far too close to him. He stumbled, head whipping around and oh that had been a terrible idea. He bent double and retched, the force straining his throat and causing his eyes to water. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? You’re in no shape to-” 

The voice cut off abruptly; a hand grabbed his arm and yanked it, and him, up. It was a man, wavering form lit by the blue of his sword. It made him look strange, inhuman eyes almost silver, shaggy hair and beard washed out to something pale and impossible, but all the same there was something...something. 

He twisted Anakin’s arm around then bared his teeth (sharp teeth, too sharp) in a hiss. He pushed up the tatters of Anakin’s sleeve, tracing the lines of black with warm fingers. Anakin let him do it, blinking owlishly. “This is- Master!” The man shouted it over his shoulder, a frantic note to his raised voice that hurt Anakin’s ears. “You’re needed here!”

“Am I?” Someone called back. Anakin tracked the noise, found the source of the green light he’d seen earlier: a tall man, dressed in a tan robe that flowed and rippled around him as he pivoted, twirled, kicked, and lunged his way through the ghouls. There were far less than Anakin remembered and the number of corpses was growing as every sweep of the man’s sword another ghoul dropped and didn’t stir again. It seemed all the ghouls were converging on the man, as if drawn by the green glow of his sword and the trails of light it left cleaving the air every time it swung, and the man was right in the thick of them yet he seemed, somehow, untouchable. 

“He’s been bitten!” 

The second man turned, lopped off an arm reaching for him, then twitched just enough to the side to avoid a flaming crossbow bolt; it sank into the skull of a ghoul but didn’t fell it. (Anakin was fairly certain he heard Rex, swearing furiously, somewhere in the distance). The man lifted a hand and Anakin saw the bolt push deeper, through the ghoul, and come out the other side. “I’m a bit busy. You’ll have to handle it.” 

The first man rolled his eyes then, fixing Anakin with a flinty look, frowned. “How fond are you of this arm?” 

“What? Who?” Anakin said, or slurred really, mouth dry and tongue sticking. The man dropped Anakin’s arm and, with another grimace, slammed a hand onto Anakin’s forehead. 

“Somne.”

The sleep sign, Anakin thought blearily before the world went dark. 

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter Two: But Its Better To be Dead: Anakin wakes in the guest chambers of Naberrie castle, under the watchful eye of one very tired savior and the curious ones of the Naberrie twins, Luke and Leia. Meanwhile Padme and Qui-Gon have a talk about the aid request she never sent out. 
> 
> I spent a lot of time trying to decide if this would just be Obi-Wan/Anakin, Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon, and onesided Anakin/Qui-Gon, or if I should just go for the stars, and in the end it was my steadfast belief that Anakin deserves all the love that swayed me. And then I immeditaly changed my mind because I can't be fucking trusted. I have a different QuiObiKin thing in the works anyway, so.


End file.
